1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and in particular to a method and apparatus for processing electronic mail messages. Still more particularly, the present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for processing automatically forwarded electronic mail messages.
2. Description of Related Art
The Internet, also referred to as an “internetwork”, is a set of computer networks, possibly dissimilar, joined together by means of gateways that handle data transfer and the conversion of messages from the sending network to the protocols used by the receiving network (with packets if necessary). When capitalized, the term “Internet” refers to the collection of networks and gateways that use the TCP/IP suite of protocols.
The Internet has become a cultural fixture as a source of both information and entertainment. Many businesses are creating Internet sites as an integral part of their marketing efforts, informing consumers of the products or services offered by the business or providing other information seeking to engender brand loyalty. Many federal, state, and local government agencies are also employing Internet sites for informational purposes, particularly agencies which must interact with virtually all segments of society such as the Internal Revenue Service and secretaries of state. Providing informational guides and/or searchable databases of online public records may reduce operating costs. Further, the Internet is becoming increasingly popular as a medium for commercial transactions.
The Internet also provides a medium for sending electronic mail messages between different users or recipients. These electronic mail messages are also referred to as email. With email, a user may send a message to one or more recipients almost instantaneously. Some users may have more than one email address. Additionally, email addresses are constantly changing for different reasons. Sometimes, a user may change service providers and receive a new email address. Other times, a service provider may be bought by or merged with another service provider. Sometimes when a service provider is bought or merged with another service provider, the combined entity will force or require some users to change domain names to have a consistent domain name in the email addresses.
When such a situation occurs, a user changing email addresses is required to notify everyone of the email address change. In many cases, when a change in domain name is required by a service provider, a grace period may be present in which both email addresses are accepted. When a user changes service providers, the user typically will maintain the old email address for a period of time and have the email sent to the old address forwarded to the new address.
It is important for a user to recognize that email is being forwarded from the original address to the new address in order to notify the sender of the email of the address change. Currently, this forwarding must be detected by looking at the “to: ” field in the message to determine whether the address is the old address. In some cases, the message may be sent to many recipients in which all of these recipients are listed in the “to:” field. Such a procedure can become tedious when many recipients are listed for the email. Further, even if the user is meticulous in checking every email received to see whether it was forwarded from an old address, the address may not appear at all. For example, some email may be sent via distribution lists using a remailer program. In this case, the sender sends a note addressed to the distribution list on the server and the program distributes the email to all addresses currently found on the list. The “to: ” field in the note may show for example, “distlistmail@abcd.org” rather than all of the addresses in the list. The actual address in this case is located in the routing information, but this information is typically removed by many email programs.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an improved method and apparatus for processing forwarded email messages to allow a user to identify messages forwarded from an old email address.